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I have a running argument with my wife about going into houseflippery to make money and "exercise creativity". I rank it up there with day trading and internet poker as a business model. HGTV and DIY have a lot to answer for.

This made me laugh and think of the name Dave Del Dotto and all those late night flip house commercials, selling books and "systems". One tends to make money on the buy, so you have to be smart. If you could do that often enough and easy enough, you wouldn't be marketing books, aka making money that way.
Heck, there was a radio commercial for some family that "as seen on HGTV", did this stuff. Nothing was ever mentioned about how much HGTV paid them, if any of the material was paid for by the show or sponsers, etc. It was all take this wall down, put in granite counter tops, do this, etc. It is easy to make money, if you get to spend other peoples money and keep profit. I heard the commercial and looked them up and just shook my head.

At last night's neighborhood meeting I mentioned to one old timer couple that we were thinking of moving. The male member said they were considerig it, too.

Everything has a season. You have mentioned in other posts that you and a core of other people have worked hard to build your neighborhood into what it is now. Today it's something different than it was (even if it's way better now). It's also been a long time and none of us are who we were 40 years ago. I can see that you and this neighbor are at a different stage of thinking about staying.

If Americans expended even a fraction of the energy on civic engagement that we spend on consumer ideology, our democracy would be much healthier. Can you imagine people camping out to vote? -- Charles Roberts, Amherst, Mass., Nov. 25, 2006

IL, I would be exhausted with all the crime, needing to have a close relationship with the neighborhood cop to stay safe, etc. Is is that or is it that many of your friends have moved?

Friends have moved. Also, coddling the criminals now seems to be the standard.

The guy who has been here 40 years and is thinking of leaving is utterly disgusted at the policies of the new procescuting attorney. He was our neighborhood's point person for identifying charged criminals, tracing them through the criminal justice system, organizing our neighborhood to get them behind bars and/or an order of protection to keep them out of our neighborhood. He can no longer do that because the prosecutor has closed all avenues to information. The cops are no longer issung timely and targeted crime stats.

In my view criminals are gonna create crime, that is their m.o., nothing new about that.

The new thing is apologetics from our elected officials, explains ng and protecting the criminals. Our mayor is useless, coddling the rioters. My state representative is out there daily protesting against police. The police chief and prosecutng attorney close off information, one reason being protecting the confidentiality of the perps.

The new people are clueless. Either they post ponderous lectures on Nextdoor about our need to understand the criminal element and their world view or the new people stand helplessly and cry "someone must do something! " when the gunshots and Thievery invade our neighborhood.

Stepping up to volunteer with our neighborhood association? Doesnt occur to them.